Learning Joy

Helping Santa at Tostacaffe

Check out this site – http://www.matthewfelton.com/
This photographer took pictures of dancers for the Pacific NW Ballet. When I went to his site, I found this picture of a puffin! I love puffins!! They are so cute! The puffins at our zoo are too funny. They puff out their chests and flap their wings and make silly sounds when they come up from a dive.
Anyways, this guy, Matthew Felton, has some really neat pictures. I also liked his desert pictures – they reminded me how cool God is.

Tonight at Ladies’ Bible study we learned about reading the Psalms & finding our own devotions in them. We’ve been learning about having devotions and have used a couple different types of devotionals, but this week we are just supposed to see what God says as we read the Psalms. Paula (the leader) wanted us to practice, so she gave us each a Psalm to read. Sue & I had Psalm 136. After reading it to each other, and discovering that it was a little history of Israel & God’s goodness to her, Sue suggested we write our own “Psalm 136”. Here is mine ~

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.
His love endures forever.
Who healed me when I was just born.
His love endures forever.
Who taught me His ways,
His love endures forever.
to Him Who gave me a Godly heritage,
His love endures forever.
and guided me through loves lost & gained.
His love endures forever.
to Him Who is faithful, even when I’m not.
His love endures forever.
Who feeds me, clothes me, and keeps a roof over my head.
His love endures forever.
to Him Who has blessed me
His love endures forever.
with a Godly husband,
His love endures forever.
and Godly children.
His love endures forever.
Who has never left me
His love endures forever.
cold, hungry, naked.
His love endures forever.
Who answers prayer,
His love endures forever.
even little ones like “the Nutcracker”.
His love endures forever.
Blessing & glory are His.
His love endures forever.

Okay, so we’ve been doing school for about two weeks now, but today we ventured out into the whole WAVA school day. We did math, language arts, and literature. Tomorrow I hope to include history & art. We need to find a spot to do art, though. 🙂 It was fun, although it took longer than I hoped. So now I am trying to prepare for tomorrow. They don’t allow me to do a lot of prep beforehand for Daniel’s math, though. And I haven’t figured out their schedule yet, either. Think I am going to have to use my homeschool tracker software. 🙂
The boys did well; it was a good day.

We have finally received our curriculum for school this year!! It is pretty neat – has an awesome science and art kit. The math seems like it has a little bit too much busywork, but I think we can work our way around that. I think I will have to start using my homeschool tracker software, as the K12 site is not really conducive to a changing schedule. It won’t give me any lesson plans until they take the first assessment test. And I don’t think I can tweak it like I want. The language arts stuff is pretty heavy – so I thought Fridays would be our fun days and Thursdays will be a bit lighter on all that. But I can’t make the schedule reflect that just yet. It is neat stuff, though! I’m so thankful we were able to get it – and all for free.
The science kit came with some books and goggles, modeling clay and a thermometer … Neat stuff!! The kids are excited to use it. Daniel was even excited to do math when he saw his math kit (it has neat manipulatives in it)! 🙂
That’s that. Glad to finally have it.
Tomorrow Jacob has a football game at Wilson (Jef’s old high school) so we might go to that. Sunday I have nursery at church and I think we are supposed to help rake leaves in the neighborhood. I don’t know. Our church tries to do a service project every month.
Oh oh oh!!! The best news is that I was able to get tickets to see the Nutcracker for really cheap!!! Our whole family is going – along with Evva, Doug, Marie, and Jacob (Matthew’s being a party pooper and not coming). Lori & her daughter, Brianna, from church are coming and so are Tina, Kamali and our friend Aisha & her girls & mother-in-law. It should be a really fun day. I think it is funny that Jef & Doug are the only two men coming! They’re so well-rounded, so secure in their masculinity. 😀
Ok – I have to get back to my lesson plans!

Last night we went to AWANA. It was a busy night for Jef & I. Neither one of us know what we are doing, having never been to AWANA before. It is a learning experience.
For those unfamiliar with AWANA, I’ll explain a little. The acronym AWANA comes from the first letters of Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed as taken from 2 Timothy 2:15: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” All kids are welcome. When you are new, you are put into an age-appropriate group and they give you a gate test. This test requires the kids to learn different things, depending on their group. The groups are as follows:
Preschoolers are in “Cubbies”
Kindergarten—2nd graders are in “Sparks”
3rd—6th grade children are in “Truth & Training” (aka T&T)
The T&T group is split – the boys and girls are separate.

Anyways, the boys were busy too. 🙂
Nicholas passed his Cubbies gate, so he is officially a Cubbie now! Woo Hoo! He gets a cute vest and a Hopper book. Daniel passed his Sparks gate, which means he knows the AWANA pledge, song and motto. 🙂 He also gets a vest to wear! Jonathan passed his T&T gate. He gets a green shirt to wear. It’s a little big now, but I am sure he’ll grow into it. 🙂 It’s exciting to see them doing well.

My oldest is definitely my child. He’s inherited my bossiness, which we are learning how to control. 🙂 Jonathan is great. He is very bright and has a great mind. He can pick up on math and science concepts much more quickly than I. That’s Jef’s contribution. 🙂 But his memory is from me. And does this boy have a great memory!! Oh my! He’s been working (just for the past two days) on memorizing Bible verses for AWANA. Here are the verses he has memorized ~

• Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths. ~ Psalm 25:4
• For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. ~ Romans 3:23
• The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? ~ Jeremiah 17:9
• As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.”. ~ Romans 3:10
• If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? ~ Psalm 130:3

Jonathan learned the last two just this morning (it didn’t take him very long at all). We’re going to work on Romans 6:23 and 2 Corinthians 9:15 later today.

God is good!!! He has blessed us with children who yearn for Him & who want to know His word.

When we were presented with the opportunity to reach a mass television audience, we knew that certain religious references would not be allowed on a children’s block under current TV network guidelines

“True friends are always together in spirit.” ~ Anne
(from Anne of Green Gables, the movie)